1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device set up process for an information processing apparatus that carries out a device setup on a network by communicating with a plurality of devices via a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
For years now, computers, such as personal computers (PCs), have been widely utilized in homes and offices. Also, networks, such as local area networks (LANs) that mutually connect computers, have also become more widespread.
For instance, environments that enable apparatuses, such as printers and scanners connected to a network to be shared and used among a plurality of users, have been widely utilized. This is specially true in office environments. For example, multifunction peripherals (MFPs) which have a plurality of functions such as printer and scanner functions and of which can further share and use these functions via a network are now common in office environments.
Moreover, in recent years network technologies have remarkably improved with the widespread use of large-scale networks such as the Internet. Among them, a technology called “web service” that allows the use of various services on a network is attracting attention. With web service, devices connected to the network cooperate with one another using technology related to the World Wide Web (WWW) such as XML (Extensible Markup Language) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol).
With regard to the market for MFPs in recent years, MFPs of web service type that provide web services such as print and scan services on the network are being developed and are being put to a practical use. In addition to that, in MFPs of web service type, a service called a device information transmission service has been proposed. In the device information transmission service, MFPs own device setup information and various information held in an MFP are transmitted to another MFP existing on the network, and device information is shared by the MFPs on the network.
In a network system in which the setup information is shared by devices using the device information transmission service, basic setup information which is required for a device to operate, such as a network setup of the device, is included in transmission information that is transmitted from an MFP providing the device information transmission service. Further, various information held in a device can be included in the transmission information, such as an address book for managing address information of users who utilize the device.
A plurality of MFPs on the network can use the device information transmission service. In this way, the devices can share the device setup individually. Therefore, a great reduction in the management cost of the network system can be expected.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-189687 discusses a system that performs a process for transmitting document information in the above-mentioned network environment. Here, a transmission server defines a transmission setup of document information generated at a device, and performs a registration process for document information to a folder in a document management server based on the transmission setup. Moreover, the transmission server performs an attaching process for document information to an E-mail address via a mail server. In addition, the transmission server performs an output process for a document transmission job to a device.
Thus, in the system discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-189687, the transmission setup of a device is performed by a transmission server, and each transmission process for stored data is performed by a device based on that setup.
However, the transmission server in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-189687 can operate on the assumption that the setups and changes by the devices or the document management server are not restricted. Therefore, if a unit that is allowed to change the system environment of a network is limited to a specific device or server, a process for canceling the limitation is needed.
More specifically, in a system in which setups for a plurality of devices are shared using the above-described device information transmission service, an MFP itself becomes a server apparatus (parent device) to transmit the MFP's own device setup to another MFP (child device). That is to say, the device of the transmission source of device information is called a parent device, and the device of the transmission destination of device information is called a child device.
In addition to the aforementioned system (“first system”) configured in the form of device-to-device communication, a second system can be designed as described below. In the second system, for instance, a server apparatus having installed thereon a device information transmission application utility software capable of facilitating unitary management of devices is connected to a network. The server apparatus transmits predetermined device information to an MFP on the network. The device information transmission application utility software is hereinafter referred to as a device information transmission application.
The first system configured in the form of device-to-device communication is used by a small-scale system environment having a small number of devices. On the other hand, generally, the second system configured in the form of server-to-device communication is used by a large-scale system environment where numerous devices, on the scale of tens or perhaps many hundreds, are installed.
The size of the first system which only includes a few devices may be enlarged by increasing the number of devices in some cases. In these cases, a server apparatus having installed thereon the device information transmission application capable of facilitating unitary management of a great number of devices is introduced to the system to attain shifting to a large-scale system.
Thus, there is a case where the first system that performs a device information transmission from a parent device to a child device can be shifted to the second system that performs a unitary device information transmission using the device information transmission application. In this case, it is necessary to change the transmission setup of each device (transmission destination setup of the parent device on the transmission side and reception setup of the child device on the receiving side).
However, there is no feature available yet that can collectively control an ON/OFF setup for a transmission service at the parent device side and an accept/refuse setup for device information at the child device side. Thus, it is necessary to make changes to each setup of each device individually via a remote operation or a direct user interface operation. And such a manual operation by a system administrator is complex in the large-scale system, so that an operation error is likely to occur.
Moreover, in the network system discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-189687, no determinations can be configured to permit or cancel the limitation to a device in the case of changing a transmission source for the transmission service. Therefore, there is a likelihood of transmitting device information from a transmission source that is unintended by the system administrator by mistake. Thus, setup information cannot be correctly shared by devices.